Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

Recently, we identified Jewish Studies scholarship that is sexist, racist, and cisheteronormative, arguing that neoliberal ideologies and metrics reinforce and promote such research. We invited collective reimagining of a more just and creative field. Thus, were bemused by a letter written shortly thereafter by former presidents of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS)the fields scholarly organization in the USdecrying the presidents resignation (after meeting with a sexual harasser the organization expelled). The letter alleged a threat to academic freedom and diversity of viewpoints. What a display of desperation by (white, Ashkenazi, Jewish) senior scholars.

Were not here to amplify the letter-writers, nor to platform their rightwing tropes purporting a crisis of academic freedom. Rather, we register the positive changes to which they disgruntledly react. And we situate these developments along three vectors: decolonizing Jewish Studies, disrupting entrenched disciplinary policing, and disburdening from neoliberalism.

Jewish Studies must confront its sexism and cisheteronormativity. Previously, we disclosed personal experiences of sexual and gender harassment within Jewish Studies. Were struck that no responses to our intervention noted these disclosures. More must be done to make our field safer, more accessible, and supportive to non-cismen.

Classics and early Christianity are also confronting racism, classism, and transphobia. As ever, webs of injustice are woven of overlapping threads (intersectionality). By not naming these phenomena, we deny their reality: the limits of language are the limits of our world. Critics denouncing terminology as jargon arent just lazily dismissing positions they find threatening or conceding their inability to proffer critique: theyre refusing to accept these realities as such. For those wishing to comprehend words like patriarchal, heternormative, and neoliberalism, consult this resource.

Cisheteronormativity signifies fixed preferences for heterosexuality with attendant norms about sexuality and gender roles (including reproduction and kinship) and cisgenderness (assumptions about binary sexgender based on biological sex). One way to discard casual cisheternormativity is to say women and nonbinary people rather than females (a bio-classification, not an identity). Similarly, gender and sexual harassment must be linked; the former is a vital element of the latter. Solidarity and intersectional thinking is critical, given violence towards trans people. Certain academicsmany of whom are self-identified feministsembrace biologically-reductive conceptions of gender to authorize their transphobia.

Refusing a priori conceptions of gender, kinship, and sexuality makes us keener scholars. Scholars and scholarship, activism and language, collaboration and justice are intertwined. Centering marginalized people, rather than including them, enables structural change.

Following scholars across the Humanities and Social Sciences, we advocate decolonizing Jewish Studies. Decolonization confronts systemic racism and historical colonialism. We tread carefully here. Its problematic to use decolonization as a metaphor, considering its origin in Indigeneous thought and activism redressing settler-colonialism and land-theft. Being white, we use this term with reservation, appreciating its ladenness, while acknowledging that it signifies phenomena otherwise difficult to discern. We solicit criticism of our (mis)use of it and invite alternatives.

Anti-racism in Jewish Studies minimally entails making it more accessible to non-white scholars and students and to the study of non-white lifeworlds. This isnt just about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or questioning the ways that merit obscures structural inequities. Confronting racism encompasses probing how our conceptual paradigms reproduce racializations and racisms. DEI often perpetuates extractive models of labor in which people of color are just added (exacerbating their disproportionate labor-burdens). This is familiar from diversity efforts addressing gender. The neutrality of DEI and its economistic justifications for increased productivity rather than flourishing, equality rather than justice, encapsulate its limitations.

Previously, we scrutinized how Jewish continuity discourse reinforces racism or reproduces racialized thinking; we invite collective attention to interrogate this across Jewish Studies. Take Jewishness, a basic analytic category in our field. Its complexities abide from antiquity to the present. Jewishness has at different moments and places been entwined with racializations and even racisms. This is not news; scholars have been addressing this for decades; these complexities are staples in introductory Jewish Studies courses. For example: early iterations of Zionism, Rosenzweigs theory of Judaism as a blood community, and post-Holocaust Jewishness are racially-valent. These emerged amidst the ascendence of eugenics and scientific-racisms, which also informed Nazi ideology. The marginalized contexts in which historical conceptions of Jewishness materialized, substantiates rather than negates analysis.

Conversely, we must guard against replicating or projecting modern-contemporary racializations onto sources unable to sustain them. For instance, using terminology traceable to scientific racisms to characterize ancient rabbinic ideas of intermarriage in contemporary accounts of a supposed early rabbinic principle of matrilineal descent is anachronistic. This says more about present conditions and racializations than about second-century Palestinian rabbis. Sometimes, this is less straightforward. The Zohar evinces Jewishness ethnocentrically, which informs subsequent Kabbalah and Hasidic thought. Medieval responsa, poetry, and liturgy, variously construe Jewishness in exclusionary and essentializing terms. How might we continue interrogating these sources without succumbing to our standpoints?

We invite scholars to turn their critical gazes onto our field. Its imperative to continue locating and disassembling the colonialism and imperialism that our field, like all others, has absorbed. Jewish Studies is well-positioned to engage this task precisely because of the variegated cultures it studies and because of the fields history.

Decolonizing Jewish Studies is a multidirectional enterprise. On the one hand, Jewish pasts and presents have been explicitly (mis)appropriated under various imperial and religious-supremacist ideologies. Think of Augustine summoning the Jew to witness and testify to Christian hegemony, or of conservatives deploying the recently invented construct of the Judeo-Christian tradition, (which is positioned against Islam and other religions and sustains Christian supersessionism of the Jewish). This Christian hegemony underwrites Western thought. Consider this subtler instance: Hegels relegation of Spinozas philosophy to the Oriental, which still colors the Jewish and non-Jewish philosophical reception of Spinoza. Marginalizing Spinozas philosophy as other positions Hegel to absorb its insights and then supersede it.

On the other hand, the introduction of Jewish Studies as a scienceWissenschaftinto the European university, its legibility as an academic discipline in which Jews themselves had agency, was fostered by these constraints. In this Western context, scholars of a historically marginalized Jewish culture tried to claim space. Western is suspect and political. It falsely erases the non-Westernness of Jewish cultures produced outside of the boundaries conventionally tagged Western. Jewish Studies must confront the vestiges of its European founding and its concomitant privileging of the Ashkenazi, European, and white. These prejudices still impact research priorities, curricular expectations, and documentary access. Scholars of Jewish cultures in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, continue to redress these lacunae.

Racism, cisheteronormativity, ableism, and classism pervade all academic disciplines. Particular to Jewish Studies is its conferral of authority on people it qualifies as Jewish. Weve benefited from this privilege and also from being Ashkenazi. We worry that an imagined continuity between contemporary Jewish scholars and the Jewish cultures studied in our field, erects a hierarchy, privileging scholars who satisfy this credential. This tension is amplified when whats being studied is temporally and geographically proximate. Its time to demystify the field and welcome a variety of students and scholars, crediting heterogenous knowledges and experiences as entry-points.

External funding is another way that Jewishness is presumed to be contiguous with Jewish Studies. Others note how this subsidizes research advancing ideological agendas, as with Jewish continuity and Israel/Palestine. We need to collectively reappraise the histories and presents of funding within universities and scholarly associations by examining the entanglements of Jewish Studies and Jewish institutions, including the founding of the AJS itself. This is related to the ways in which universities push scholarship to satisfy economistic and utilitarian metrics.

The latter observation points to the neoliberalization of higher education. Unsurprisingly, its particular brands of investments and commendation influence Jewish Studies. Pressure to produce work construed as relevant or impactful and that conforms to narrow empiricisms, often results in a bias for the contemporary or immediate past. We have no quarrel with American Jewish Studies or the study of contemporary Jews and Jewishness, in and of themselves. We commend shifts to heterogeneous subjects and methods, especially those informed by sociological theory and critical ethnography that critique inherited methods and introduce alternatives.

Still, the overpromotion of the contemporary deleteriously affects adjacent subfields. Fetishizing the present is not unique to Jewish Studies: research in departments across the Humanities is disproportionately focused on the modern-contemporary and the American. Contra these currents, we refuse to cede or constrict relevance to presentist concerns.

Rigid construals of relevance, including the tokenization of the present, fail to encourage decolonization across periods and disciplines. Decolonizing is a matter of justice. It starts with correcting the historic marginalization of researchers and subjects that are not cisheteromale, able-bodied, and white. It must also dispense with fictions of neutrality or the marketplace of ideas, while unmasking allegiance to standards, merit, and rigor as ideology disguised as impartial metrics.

Comparing collective action against a harasser to a tragic Cold War abuse of power is disingenuous. But the comparison discloses whats at stake: a contrived Manichean battle between the forces of the Left and the Right.

Embracing collaborative and comparative research without heed to disciplinary and hierarchical borders licenses us to pursue work with sources, scholars, and methods typically viewed as outside of Jewish Studies. Its time to cast-off ideological conceits of conceptual, disciplinary, and methodological purity, ciphers for whats habitual and familiar. Thinking differently requires confidence and humility: it entails overcoming the aversion to the disorientation that accompanies theorizing thats open to alterity, irresolution, and discordance.

Such disinhibition may fortify us to scrutinize uninterrogated categories and push beyond overdetermined, conventional paths of thinking, positioning us to provincialize (be attuned to the contingency of) rather than naturalize (unquestioningly reiterate) contemporary assumptions and ideas. Take, again, Jewishness: a transdisciplinary approach spurs granulated accounts questioning circular assumptions of Jewish exceptionalism. This thickens conceptions of the mutually constituting ways in which Jewishness and other dimensions emerge, thereby refusing binaries like influence versus resistance or simplistic causal models.

Disrupting disciplinary policing involves supporting research thats informed by different theoretical and philosophical movements, including: Critical Race Theory, Trans Studies, Disability Studies, Queer and Gender Studies, and other critiques of power, class, and ideology. This allows us to reconfigure the frameworks of what we consider thinkable, the sources we privilege, and the methods we deploy.

Jewish Studies is already moving towards knowledge-making thats more just. Its thus jarring that a former AJS president describes the resistance to rehabilitating a sexual harasser as McCarthyism. McCarthy, wielding governmental and institutional power, accused academics of being communists and sympathizers. Comparing the womens collective action against a harasser to this tragic Cold War abuse of power is disingenuous. But the comparison discloses whats at stake: a contrived Manichean battle between the forces of the Left and the Right. The supposed Left, with its vilified wokeness, is imagined to be deploying its purportedly disproportionate power to suppress sexual harassers and their sympathizers. This perverse calculus is familiar from the Trump playbook.

Rather than a marketplace of ideas, we advocate interdisciplinary thinking that critiques power and ideology. We dismiss this harassers work because its content is wrong and harmful: its sexist, cisheteronormative, and racist. That this aligns with his patterns of harassment is hardly coincidental, as scholars note. But absent this, wed discount the work on ethico-intellectual grounds alone. We invite opponents of the effort to confute his scholarship to defend it on its merits, rather than fear mongering about academic freedom to salvage his reputation and research (which is notorious for fear mongering about the Jewish future).

Theres a chasm between the openness were advocating to dismantle injustices in Jewish Studies and the conceit of a marketplace of ideas. The alarm in this bellicose letter is gratifying: it affirms that change is afoot. Jewish Studies, thanks to the courageous work of countless scholars, is shifting. Its pivoting towards social and knowledge-making landscapes that are more accessible, heterogeneous, and just. To sustain this momentum, let us commit to decolonizing, resisting disciplinary insularity, and dispensing with neoliberalism.

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Decolonizing Jewish Studies Part II: A Response to the Backlash - Religion Dispatches

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Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

SABRA AS hero: Eight on the Track of One by Yemima Avidar-Tchernovitz (Keter Publishing)Its been 90 years since journalist Uri Kesari published the essay We Are the Leaves of the Sabra! in the Doar HaYom newspaper, in which he called for changing the use of the derogatory nickname Sabra into a positive term.This moniker, which was commonly used to refer to people born in Israel, had a negative connotation and brought with it a feeling of derision, contempt and pity, the essay read. Native-born Israelis constitute the greater part of this great and wonderful enterprise of One Nation in One Land.

Kesari, who was himself a Sabra, exposed in his essay a bit of the way native-born Israelis were regarded by new immigrants.

In the Land of Israel, we do not look down upon everyone else from up high. People who were born in Warsaw or in Vienna are the same as us. Their children will be part and parcel of the homeland, and yet still they look down on us. They view us as inferior, as lesser than them, and with limited capabilities. This attitude must not be allowed to continue.

If up until then it was customary to think of native-born Israelis as Sabras, since they were sweet on the inside and prickly on the outside, Kesari chose to offer an alternative interpretation.

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In the near-century since then, the Sabra has become an icon that is widely portrayed in Israeli literature, film and theatrical productions. In an article he wrote on the characterization of the Sabra, Prof. Oz Almog wrote that the term refers to members of the next generation of pioneers from the early waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine in the 20th century, who were members of the labor movement social groups, alongside Jewish youth who arrived in Israel between the two world wars and were assimilated into kibbutzim and moshavim or boarding schools in cities, agricultural villages, as well as in youth movements and the Palmah. According to Oz, the Sabra was defined mainly by his cultural affiliations and not by his country of birth.

The prestige of native-born Israelis reached its peak during the War of Independence and just after it ended. The Israeli public attributed Israels success in the war for the most part to the Sabras and their iconic Sabra look, which included a cloth cap, a scarf around the neck, a thick head of hair, leather sandals, khaki clothing and speaking a tzabarit form of Hebrew.

WRITERS SUCH AS Haim Gouri, Didi Manosi, Shaul Bieber, Dahn Ben-Amotz and Haim Hefer, who established the first IDF entertainment troupe, the Chizbatron, turned the Palmah way of life into a successful entertainment industry. In the 1970s, the Education Ministrys physical education program, spearheaded by Dr. Hillel Ruskin, set about improving Israelis poor level of physical fitness. And of course, we must not forget the famous Israeli educational television show Kishkashta that featured a talking Sabra cactus.

In the first decades of the 20th century, young Sabras were introduced to a high level of language. Dr. Nitza Dori, head of the Early Age Circle at the Religious Academic College of Education in Haifa, says the earliest Hebrew books written for children were published by Haim Nahman Bialik, and later by Levin Kipnis, Miriam Yellen-Shtaklis, Leah Goldberg, Yemima Avidar-Tchernovitz, Avraham Shlonsky and Natan Alterman.

These writers put an emphasis on the Hebrew language, and most of these childrens books included detailed descriptions of the landscapes found in the Land of Israel and peoples love for their country, Dori explains.

The writers aspired to create a model of native-born Israeli children who were strong and suntanned, and so the protagonists were given modern Israeli names like Hagai, Yonatan and Dana. These characters were oftentimes portrayed as being playful, confident children who in their spare time would play games involving heroism and courage, in an effort to shape a character different from the submissive Jewish children in the Diaspora. Teachers devoted time to taking their students on hikes around the country in an effort to impart upon them a love of their homeland by visiting these places and seeing them with their own eyes.

In addition, songs and stories also strictly adhered to these themes, and many songs specifically mentioned the importance of donating money by putting coins in the KKL-JNF iconic blue boxes, continues Dori. Most of the childrens stories took place in agricultural villages or kibbutzim, so that Israeli children would feel connected to Israels rural landscapes and settlements. There were also childrens songs about Israeli youths who would sacrifice themselves for their homeland.

From the beginning of Israeli cinema in the 1930s and until the Six Day War, the character of the male Sabra stood out, notes Dr. Arielle Friedman, head of the communication department at Oranim College of Education. One example is the character Asi Dayan portrayed in the movie He Walked Through the Fields, based on the book written by Moshe Shamir. In many films the Sabra is portrayed as a heterosexual Ashkenazi man who is usually handsome and extremely manly, and oftentimes is an IDF combat soldier and lives on a kibbutz. The Sabra symbolizes our attempt to create a figure who is the complete opposite of the weak Jew from the Diaspora, and is the story of our people.

This figure was seen over and over in Israeli cultural genres, including literature, poetry, posters and films, explains Dr. Liat Steir-Livni, assistant professor in the Department of Culture at Sapir Academic College.

DESPITE CRITICISM of the Sabra figure from the center from early state years, it continued to appear in Israeli culture, such as in the book Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar or in the song Al Zot by Natan Alterman, continues Steir-Livni. The Sabra was depicted as a character who was fully enmeshed in the Zionist movement and was associated with men who worked the land, even though in reality throughout the 20th century only a small percentage of Sabras lived in rural settlements. In the early state years, the Sabra was presented as a man who was courageous, industrious and active in the Zionist movement. Moreover, the fact that he would sacrifice himself for his ideological beliefs was portrayed in a positive light and as a heroic act.

This Sabra figure finally took on new characteristics in the mid-1960s in Israeli films.

Ephraim Kishon did this in his film Sallah Shabati by showing cultural differences. The film mocks kibbutnikim, the various Israeli political parties and the people who worked in the absorption centers with new immigrants, says Steir-Livni. The avant-guard film A Hole in the Moon by Uri Zohar also dismantled the Zionist settlement myth, and contemporary Israeli cinema eliminates the Ashkenazi Sabra character by placing other men at the center, including religious, haredi, Arab, Bedouin, gay and Middle-Eastern characters.

Then we have the female Sabra figure in Israeli film, continues Steir-Livni. The female Sabra is portrayed as an active laborer who works side by side with her male compatriots in complete equality. This description, however, is a complete distortion of reality, of course. Research shows that women who attempted to break through the glass ceiling were met time and again with strong resistance. In actuality, in rural settlements, women were given positions like raising children and kitchen duty, and had to fight for the right to fill other roles.

Prof. Ronit Kark, founder and former director of the Gender in the Field Graduate Program at Bar-Ilan University, adds that early on, the female Sabra character resembled the male Sabra figure, and was portrayed as a rough and tough woman who was direct, nature-loving, brave, wore khaki shorts, worked hard in the fields and took part in nighttime guard duty and combat activity. In reality, the female Sabra character was more complex.

Despite the fact that the female Sabra character was portrayed as a feminist who was equal to her male cohorts, she was also given typical female roles, including as teachers, community activists, notes Kark. Just as the general image of the Sabra changed over the years, so did the image of the female Sabra. Nowadays, the female Sabra character is more diverse and contains a multiplicity of identities, including women from religious or secular backgrounds, and could be Ethiopian, Middle Eastern and Ashkenazi.

From an all-Israeli heroic character the model of self-definition the Sabra became a nostalgic figure at best and a despised figure at worst, explains Prof. Motti Neiger of the School of Communication at Bar-Ilan University. The Sabra was nurtured as a myth and the personification of Zionism. It was created as a contrast to the image of the Diaspora Jew. This character, however, came to personify only a very small portion of the nation, which was quickly becoming much more diverse.

While an elite group can for a certain amount of time be respected for leading the nation, it also must admit to having certain privileges, and at some point it becomes the object of disgust. The Sabra character was created by people, and was also removed by people. Social forces, cultural diversity and individualistic desires forced it away.

Some people will mourn this loss, while others will celebrate it.

Translated by Hannah Hochner.

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Israel and the metamorphosis of the Sabra through the years - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

When Michal Oshman walked into Facebooks London offices on her first day of work at the social media giant, she encountered a question emblazoned on the wall at the entrance: What would you do if you werent afraid?

The question struck a deep chord with Oshman, 45, who felt that she had lived much of her life controlled by deep-seated fears and anxieties. And, while she didnt know it at the time, that prompt would set Oshman, an Israeli-born, secularly-raised Jew on a life-changing religious and spiritual journey.

It was only when I was about 37-38 [years old], after trying every single thing I was aware that was possible to deal with anxiety and fear and despair and mental health challenges that many of us face, when I discovered Judaism more from the spiritual side, Oshman told Jewish Insider in a recent interview from London, where she lives with her husband, Yair, and four children. Then I started slowly, slowly practicing, which is when I started healing my soul.

Oshman, who recently started a new job as TikToks head of culture, is now publishing a book titled What Would You Do If You Werent Afraid?: Discover a Life Filled with Purpose and Joy Through the Secrets of Jewish Wisdom. Part memoir, part self-help book, Oshman recounts her own upbringing as the daughter of Yehuda Hiss, Israels former chief pathologist, and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and her journey to self-healing through Jewish wisdom. Each chapter is based around a concept in Jewish thought and is followed by questions aimed at guiding the concepts application to the readers own life.

Once Oshman realized how much she personally gained from her experience, she set out to share her insights and discoveries with the world.

I really got myself off of very, very bad thoughts and started to enjoy things that I just couldnt see before, she said. That realization, she said, prompted her to seek to share her discoveries with the larger world. This book was written for universal readership, its not aimed just for the Jewish community, she added. My hope is that the people that will show curiosity to read this book are people that are curious about developing themselves anyone thats interested in spirituality anyone that just is curious to learn something new.

Above all, Oshman urges readers to take actions to transform their lives and work toward becoming the person they want to be. I invite you to be curious. Take that first step and explore something you would never have expected to explore, she suggests. Step out of your comfort zone. Who knows where it could lead?

At the end of each chapter which have titles such as Shvira: Grow Your Broken Heart and Teshuva: Return to Yourself is a section titled: If you change nothing, nothing will change (dubitably attributed to Albert Einstein). There Oshman suggests steps based in Jewish and Hasidic concepts to guide readers on a path to personal growth. I invite you to think how you could replace fear with action and cross your internal and external life bridges. Remember, crossing a bridge, big or small, is taking action, she writes in one section.

Oshman grew up in Tel Aviv, in a house that was more about Israeliness than Judaism in any spiritual way, she recalls. As a young newlywed, she moved to London with her husband and worked to start over and climb the career ladder in a new country. After a series of business and tech jobs, she arrived at Facebook seven years ago to join its leadership and development team.

It was during that time, she recalls, that she first began to explore spirituality, Jewish beliefs and her own journey to religious observance.

It definitely wasnt a one moment of discovery, she told JI. Slowly, slowly, I started lighting [Shabbat candles] but without expecting anything, really, just trying it. But after a while, she said, there was this moment when I realized that this lighting of the candle does open a door to something within myself and I started playing around with the idea of keeping Shabbat.

The Oshman family began by keeping two hours of Shabbat in the evening, then it was four hours, then until the morning every time we kind of took another step forward. But while Michal was beginning her spiritual exploration, she had to make sure her husband and her children were on the same page.

Any moment when we had a bit of tension I reminded myself that the most important thing is shalom bayit, or domestic harmony. She said while it wasnt always easy, the couple had a lot of honest conversations about each others positions. [Yair] was right, he didnt marry a woman that keeps Shabbat or keeps kashrut, but we evolve in life and I think part of marriage is to try to go with each other on a journey.

This book was written for universal readership, its not aimed just for the Jewish community.

The news also came as a little bit of a shock to her parents and siblings back in Israel, but they were ultimately accepting.

Oshman said that her employers at Facebook were also welcoming of her new observance, even when it meant she stopped answering the phone or emails on Saturdays.

Facebook has an amazing company culture, she said. Oshman said that at past jobs in London, she experienced antisemitism and bigotry, and she always felt hesitant about sharing her heritage. But on her first meeting with her manager at Facebook, he asked, Michal, what do you care about? she recalled. The question, she said, took her by surprise, and prompted an unexpectedly real response about her Jewish and Israeli roots.

I was really annoyed with myself after because I was like, Why did I even say that? Oshman recalled to JI. But the reason I said it is because my managers humility and his curiosity which very much represents what its like to work for the company just opened up something inside me that I was never even considering to open up.

And her experience at Facebook, she said, wasnt any special treatment that I got, but was indicative of a larger company policy to help people bring themselves their full selves, for whatever that is, if its faith, whether its sexuality, if its how you want to live your life its very inclusive.

At the beginning of this year, Oshman left Facebook and joined TikTok as its head of culture in the European branch of the popular social media app. The move, she said, was motivated by her desire to move kind of to a startup and have an opportunity to shape something with them.

And the company, she said, is equally welcoming of her faith and beliefs.

TikTok has also very much embraced me and welcomed me with who I am, she said. The same way that we want our platform to welcome different voices and different opinions and have that diversity on the platform.

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The TikTok exec looking to spread Hasidic values - Jewish Insider

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Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

CHESTER A federal judge approved an agreement on Friday between the state Attorney General's Office and Town of Chester that resolves another piece of the 2019 discrimination lawsuit by the developers of the 431-home Greens at Chester project.

The developers, who claimed the town obstructed their fully approved plans to try to prevent an influx of Hasidic families, already settled their case against the town in February and have been building homes since last year, with 22 now under construction.

But still pending before U.S. District Court Judge Phillip Halpern were the separate claims by Attorney General Letitia James, who had intervened in support of the developers to enforce compliance with the Fair Housing Act and other federal laws.

In the consent decree Halpern signed Friday, town officials deny any wrongdoing and insist they acted in compliance with the Fair Housing Act, while agreeing to take several steps to reinforce the town's commitment to the law and address future complaints.

Settlement: Greens at Chester developer resolves suit against town officials

Intervention: State AG joins developer's bias suit against Chester

Lawsuit: Greens at Chester developers file $100M bias suit against town, county

As part of the decree which remains subject to the court's oversight for three years the town promises not to interfere with the development or purchase of homes based on the buyers' "religion or familial status." It also pledges to adopt no housing laws or policies or makeany decisions about housing projects that discriminate on that basis.

The steps the town must take are fairly minor. Town Board members and certain town employees must take a training class on fair-housing rules each year. The town also must name one officialor employee to be Chester's "fair housing compliance officer," and post its fair housing policyand links to state and federal agencies on its website.

The Attorney General's Office can audit Chester's pending housing projects any time during the three years the decree is in effect. The town must detail in its Planning Board minutes how all such applications are handled, including the reasons for any conditions or rejections, and preserve any written complaints of discrimination.

The plaintiffs had bought the undeveloped, 117-acre Greens at Chester site off Conklintown Road for $12.1 million in 2017, four years after the town had approved the housing plans. The previous owner had slogged through the review process for years and fought the town in court before getting that approval, but never started construction.

The new developers sued Chester, Orange County and various officials less than two years later, alleging they were holding up the project to keep out Hasidic families and citing a litany of remarks at public and private meetings. The case sought $100 million in damages.

Neither the town nor county will pay any damages. The county and County Executive Steve Neuhaus settled with the developers last year, acknowledging no wrongdoing and agreeing to defer any further decisions about the site's water supply to state officials. The county still must complete a separate settlement with the Attorney General's Office.

Chester won a court case against its insurer last year that will require the company to pay the town's legal bills for the case. Town Supervisor Robert Valentine said Monday that those costs were approaching $400,000.

The developers brought the case after the town denied them building permits and gave two reasons: the proposed homes were larger than approved, and all infrastructure work had to be done before houses could be built. The developers disputed both claims and called them a pretext to try to stop the project.

Valentine, with the case now fully resolved, repeated on Monday the town's defense that it had simply tried to enforce the terms of the development approval.

"It wasn't a discrimination lawsuit," he said. "It was a zoning lawsuit."

cmckenna@th-record.com

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Attorney general settles housing bias claims against Town of Chester over 431-home project - Times Herald-Record

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Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

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(THE CONVERSATION) The annual Lag BaOmer pilgrimage to Mount Meron in Israel attracts as many as half a million visitors every year. Because of COVID-19, this years event was less crowded, but even so, over 100,000 people were packed into a space with a capacity for perhaps 15,000. This overcrowding reportedly contributed to the recent tragedy, in which at least 45 people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews known as Haredim in Hebrew, died in a stampede.

This is by far the largest pilgrimage of Jews to what is believed to be the gravesite of the second-century Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.

I have participated twice in the pilgrimage once in 1994 as a newly observant Jew seeking religious meaning, and again in 2001 as a scholar of Jewish history. What fascinates me about this pilgrimage is the way it weaves together Jewish mysticism, folk practices and modern-day nationalism.

Early history

The Jewish practice of worshipping at the graves of holy men is at least a thousand years old. Many Jews particularly those whose ancestry comes from the Arab world, called Mizrahim or Sephardim believe that these saints can act as their advocates in the celestial court. They pray at their gravesites for everything from children to good health to a livelihood.

The pilgrimage to Meron, in the hills of the Galilee near Safed in the northern part of Israel, initially focused on the graves of other holy figures said to be buried there, particularly the early rabbinic sages Hillel and Shamai, whose debates on Jewish law helped lay the foundation for rabbinic Judaism 2,000 years ago.

In the aftermath of the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492, Safed grew into an important center of Jewish mysticism, known in Hebrew as Kabbalah. The most important and influential of these mystics was the 16th-century scholar Isaac Luria, whose innovative teachings transformed Judaism and Jewish history. Under his influence, the focus of the Meron pilgrimage shifted to Shimon, whose burial place was among the many such graves of ancient rabbis that Luria identified with supernatural guidance.

Shimon is by tradition credited with the composition of the Zohar, the core text of all subsequent Jewish mysticism, though scholars have determined it was actually composed in 13th-century Spain.

Sixteenth-century mystics, and the Jews who follow in their footsteps, are thus particularly interested in connecting to him. They are especially interested in doing so on the anniversary of his death, when the Zohar states he revealed the deepest secrets about God, and pilgrims expect to experience a taste of that revelation. Since at least the 18th century, that date has been accepted as Lag BaOmer.

The pilgrimage

The Hebrew name of the holiday Lag BaOmer literally reflects its date in the Jewish calendar, the 33rd day of the Omer, the ritual counting of 50 days from the holiday of Passover, commemorating the exodus from Egypt, to Shavuot, commemorating Gods revelation and giving of the Torah, the Jewish holy canon.

These seven weeks are traditionally days of mourning commemorating the death of 24,000 students of the great sage Rabbi Akiva in the second century by plague, seen as a punishment by God. Only five people survived, including Shimon. Haircuts, music, weddings and all celebrations are prohibited during that seven-week period.

On Lag BaOmer, the restrictions are lifted in accordance with the tradition that on this day the plague ended. Mystical tradition credits this to Shimons death, which was understood as having the power to eradicate the decree of the plague. According to that tradition, Shimon instructed that the day of passing be celebrated rather than mourned, and thus was born the celebration we know today.

Rituals and prayers

In the 20th century, even before the founding of Israel, the Lag BaOmer pilgrimage to Meron grew into a mass event.

Pilgrims light bonfires symbolizing the light of Torah revealed by Shimon, or perhaps the literal fires that the Zohar states surrounded him at the moment of his death. In fact, they are lit not only at Meron, but throughout Israel and the world, although for some secular Zionists it evokes not Shimon but instead the Bar Kochba military rebellion against Rome that occurred around the same time.

Its earliest pilgrims were mostly Moroccan Jews who arrived in Israel intent on continuing their tradition of graveside visits to saints, convinced of the possibility of magical remedies and blessings through their holy intervention.

Many pilgrims celebrate the kabbalistic custom of giving a boy his first haircut, leaving behind the sidelocks, at 3 years of age. In recent years, ultra-Orthodox Jews of European ancestry especially Hasidim have increasingly dominated the site, although all sectors of Jewish society are represented there.

The pilgrimage is one of the only truly widespread expressions of folk religion in Judaism today. As anthropologist Edith Turnerwrote in her classic essay on Meron, pilgrims come to Meron with deep faith in its power to bring blessings to them. This is a popular celebration, with a long history that shimmers through the events at various points.

The celebration is an intense, highly packed event that offers participants an ecstatic experience of communing with God in a collective of tens, even hundreds of thousands, of fellow Jews.

I can certainly attest to this effect. In 1994, at the start of my journey into Orthodox Judaism, I joined the Lag BaOmer pilgrimage to Meron. At that time, the festival hosted many Moroccan Jews, who camped outside the main grounds. Several among them had live animals ready to be slaughtered and eaten to celebrate their sons first haircuts. The Ashkenazic Hasidic Jews sects of Jews from Eastern Europe deeply influenced by Jewish mysticism and devoted to their leaders dominated the inner spaces of the compound.

Everywhere I walked, people offered me free drinks, convinced of the promise that it would bring blessings to their family. Meanwhile, gender-segregated crowds sang and danced in unison for hours into the night, creating a palpable sense of euphoria and connection to a collective eternity. Some of us pushed inside to approach the gravesite and prayed for blessings of success, while others pushed to reach closer to the bonfires.

There were several fires, each representing a different Jewish community, although by custom the main fire is lit by the head of the Boyan Hasidim, so called because their leaders originally lived in the city of Boyan in Ukraine. It was in the area of a different Hasidic group, known as Toldos Aharon, that the tragedy on April 30, 2021, occurred. This group can be seen dancing this year, just before the tragedy.

By the time I returned in 2001, I had become a full-fledged Hasid myself and was living in Betar Illit, a massive Haredi settlement south of Jerusalem. I recall far fewer Moroccan families camping in tents. But the number of Haredim, joined by Sephardim, modern Orthodox and even secular pilgrims seemed to have exploded, serving to enhance that sense of eternal community, of Jewish connection across time and space.

I have long since left that Hasidic world, for a variety of reasons. But I do not for a moment discount the very real experience of divinity and eternity enjoyed by Meron pilgrims, and their deep need to return to it each year.

Political overtones

The events leading up to the deadly stampede need to be viewed in context of Haredi society in Israel today about 12% of the population, but growing rapidly and the power wielded by its leaders. Israels first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, granted Haredim extensive autonomy in their education system, military deferments, welfare funding and more. Israels parliamentary system, which offers small political parties disproportionate power, has carefully protected and expanded that autonomy.

As a result, Haredi leaders have successfully fought enforcement of government oversight and safety regulations, from COVID-19 restrictions to the Meron festival. Aryeh Deri, the interior minister and leader of the Sephardic Shas party, said on the eve of Lag BaOmer: This is a holy day, and the largest gathering of Jews [each year]. Bad things, he promised, dont happen to Jews on religious pilgrimage: One should trust in Rabbi Shimon in times of distress.

Similar sentiments were voiced by Haredi leaders when they prematurely opened their schools last year, promising that Torah study would hold the plague at bay. Countless officials had warned that Meron was a disaster waiting to happen.

One hopes that this tragedy will lead Haredim and other Israelis to accept government oversight and limits at the site.

One should not for a moment, however, discount the vital need of members of this community to bond with one another and God at this place, any more than we would discount the legitimacy of other religious and secular communities finding it elsewhere.

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Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

Rabbi Shragi Gestetner was born to make music.

He started composing when he was 12. He sold his first song at 18. His debut album, Shragee, pulsates with the joy of a man who has found his calling. The year after it came out, Tablet called Gestetner one of the rising talents of the current generation of Hasidic music.

His voice was the sound of music, said Gershy Moskowits, the producer who discovered him. It sounded like a violin playing.

But when Gestetner died at Mt. Meron on Thursday at the age of 33, he had already left his music career behind. Dozens of songwriting credits and a solo album had given him a taste of celebrity, but the work playing weddings and fundraising dinners up and down the Eastern Seaboard occupied his nights and weekends. So several years ago, with four children at the time, he walked away from the music scene to pursue life as a family man.

Thats how he wanted to be remembered, Moskowits said. He wanted to stay with his wife and kids. He wanted to learn Torah.

To support his family, Gestetner built a business selling upscale headboard panels to hotels, an idea that came to him when he was soundproofing his home recording studio. He found enough success in the venture to become an impactful donor in Monsey, N.Y., where he lived with his wife and five children.

Gestetner was one of 45 people, including six Americans, who died in a crowd crush that occurred during last weeks Lag BOmer festival at Meron, an annual event in Northern Israel that attracted 100,000 people this year.

When a budding teenage guitarist fell out with his parents, Gestetner invited him to move in with his family where the young man stayed until his own wedding day. Even when his calendar was packed with weddings, bar mitzvahs and fundraisers, the venues he played most frequently were hospital rooms of sick Hasids soothed by the sound of his voice.

His music or business was just a side job, said Dovy Meisels, who occasionally performed alongside Gestetner at weddings. His main job was to make you feel good.

Shraga Eliyahu Gestetner taught himself guitar and piano as a child growing up in Montreal, practicing the melodies of Hasidic music stars like Avraham Fried and Mordechai Ben David. It didnt take long for original tunes to begin swirling around his head.

There was just one problem: his parents didnt want him going into music.

Worried that such a career would reduce his marriage prospects a young man should be in yeshiva, not entertaining at weddings they discouraged young Shragi from pursuing his passion. He hardly sang as a child. He never joined a choir.

But music was a part of who he was. So he nurtured his talent on his own. Eventually he recorded a CD of original songs, which found its way into Moskowits hands through the producers son, a classmate.

It was like a breath of fresh air, Moskowits remembers. His compositions were very heartfelt, beautiful. They touched on lyrics that other people werent using. Moscovits hired him to write more songs, which were recorded with other singers. He respected his parents wishes to keep his own voice out of the business until he got married, when he and Moskowits set about producing his first album. He recruited renowned Hasidic singer Yossi Green to contribute.

Ever the perfectionist, Gestetner would pull all-nighters to nail an arrangement. It took him months just to choose the cover art.

The final product, Shragee, was released in 2011, launching Gestetners performing career. True to the personality of its creator, the album is at turns upbeat, sweet, and sensitive.

Its got a lot of happy songs, and a lot of I dont want to say sad songs, you cant call it sad but warm songs, Gestetner said then in an interview with Arutz Sheva.

Shloime Taussig, one of the first singers to record a Gestetner-written song, said that the life of a popular Hasidic musician conflicts with family life. In peak wedding season, he said, he can go months without putting his kids to bed at night. Taussig had tried to reduce his weekend commitments for that reason.

Still, as a singer, he attested to the difficulty of Gestetners mid-career pivot.

It takes courage to put such a thing aside, he said. Its not just money. Its part of your life.

Indeed, Moskowits said Gestetner was the only artist he had worked with to quit in his prime. But he did it with resolve, and never lost the gentle smile he was known for.

Moskowits recently ran into his former protege in Monsey, at a time when he was looking for musicians for a lucrative performing gig. Gestetners response to the offer, the producer recalled, was simple: Gershy, family.

According to reports, Gestetner traveled with his two brothers to Israel to celebrate Lag BOmer on Mt. Meron, an event that attracts tens of thousands of Hasidic Jews from all over the world each year. He was buried in Har HaMenuchot Cemetery in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife Tzippy Gestetner who friends noted was an avid supporter of his music career and their five children.

Reached by telephone Monday, Green, his longtime collaborator, said he was still in shock and wanted to express his condolences to the family in person before speaking with the Forward.

Though Taussig said he was not a close friend of Gestetner, he drove an hour and a half to make the trip from Brooklyn to the shiva home.

I told my wife, how many times did I have a call locally that I didnt have the patience to make the trip? Taussig said. And all of a sudden Im driving an hour and a half. Out of a lot of music industry guys, I had a connection with him.

Shraga Gestetner, 33, a Skverer Hasid from Monsey (originally from Montreal), a singer who launched a successful interior furnishing business.

Rabbi Eliezer Tzvi Joseph, a Satmar Hasid from Kiryas Joel, was the father of four children.

Yossi Kohn, 22, from Cleveland, Ohio, was a student at the selective Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Elazar Yitzchak Koltai, 13, from Passaic, New Jersey, moved to Jerusalem with his family at a young age. He was known as Azi.

Menachem Knoblowitz, 20, of Borough Park, who got engaged to his girlfriend, Hindy Rozmarin, in April. Baruch Rozmarin, Hindys brother, said Knoblowitz was a very nice boy and always with a smile on his face.

Nachman Doniel Morris, 19, was studying at the prestigious Yeshivat Shaalvim in Israel following his graduation from MTA, the Orthodox high school in New York. His friends, family, and teachers highlighted his sweet disposition, dedication to learning Torah. The epitome of generosity and sensitivity to his classmates, said Rabbi Josh Kahn, MTAs head of school.

His voice was the sound of music: An American Hasid lost on Mt. Meron

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Posted By admin on May 7, 2021

Aron Wieder talks about Israel stampede deaths

Aron Wieder talks about Israel stampede deaths

Peter Carr, Times Herald-Record

Two men from Rockland County and one from Kiryas Joel were among at least 45 people crushed or trampled to death early Friday while leavingan annual religious gathering in Israel.

The victims included ShragyGestetner, a 33-year-old father of five from Airmont who was a Skverer Hasidic rabbinical scholar and singer who used to perform at large events.

Also among the deceased were Eliezer Josef, a 26-year-old father of four from Kiryas Joel; andYosef Amram Tauber, an 18-year-old yeshiva student from Monsey.

The disaster took place at Mount Meron in northern Israel, where Orthodox Jews from around the world converge each year to celebrate the Lag BaOmer holiday near the gravesite of a revered, 2nd-century rabbi on the anniversary of his death. Tens of thousands of worshippers pray, sing and dance beside bonfires at the Mount Meron site.

The festive holiday turned to horror as throngs of celebrants began leaving during a bonfire after midnight and got jammed together inside a constricted exit, according to published reports. About 150 reportedly were injured in addition to those who died.

Abe Glanz, a 42-year-old Kiryas Joel man who attended the bonfire, said by email and phone on Friday that he was standing in the grandstand about 200 feet away as the tragedy unfolded. He said he could see people pushing and heard calls for medical assistance, but didn't realize the severity of what happened until he left through another exit later.

There he saw 10 bodies laid on the ground and counted about five more that emergency workers were carrying to put beside them.

New Jersey: Bergenfield man dies in stampede at religious gathering in Israel

Israel tragedy: At least 44 dead, over 100 injured in stampede at religious gathering

Glanz, speaking from the plane as he returned home from Israel, said he attends the Lag BaOmer bonfire at Mount Meron almost every year and is usually one of hundreds as many as 1,000 from Kiryas Joel who make the trip. This year, he said, just 50 to 60 people came from the Orange County village because of COVID-related travel restrictions in Israel.

Text and WhatsApp chains buzzed through the night as familiessought information on their loved ones who were there.

You just saw it unfold in real life, said Rockland County Legislator Aron Wieder, who is from Spring Valley. I had flashbacks to 9/11, he said, recalling how posters with pictures and information of missing people popped up throughout Manhattan.

Wieder knew both Rockland men who died. He said Gestetner originally was from Montreal and moved to Rockland when he wed. Tauber, the oldest child in his family,had just gone to Israel for the first time to study at a yeshiva.

The disaster took place in a mens section that accommodates tens of thousands of visitors during the holiday. Wieder speculated that the crowds were denser because the holiday fell near the Sabbath, which meant people couldnt spread out their visits.

Wieder said because Israel is ahead of U.S. time zones, many gatherings here forLag BaOmercanceled their traditional singing and dancing to mourn instead.

In Kiryas Joel, which hosts one of the largest bonfires in the U.S., Aron Teitelbaum, one of two grand rabbis who lead the Satmar Hasidic movement,spoke to the crowd and wept as he told those gathered about the impact of the tragedy in Israel, Wieder said.

Fatal stampede stops religious festival in Israel

A stampede at a religious festival attended by tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in northern Israel killed at least 44 people and injured about 150 early Friday, medical officials said. (April 30)

AP

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Posted By admin on March 10, 2021

NEW YORK, March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --A new and exciting era in long term teen travel to Israel has begun with the launch of Jewish National Fund-USA's (JNF-USA) DREAM ISRAEL: Teen Travel Initiative.

JNF-USA's DREAM ISRAEL will make grants of up to $7,500 available per teen on selected programs.

The initiative will reignite long-term Jewish teen travel to Israel, bringing leading Zionist movements, the Conservative and Reform movements together with JNF-USA.

Supported by JNF-USA's Boruchin Center, DREAM ISRAEL will enable students to access various levels of grant funding toward their travel to Israel while learning about the act of tzedakah (charity).

For example, if a teen raises $2,500 in funds, they receive $3,750 in grants for a minimum four-week program in Israel. If the program they choose is at least eight weeks long, they can raise $5,000 in funds to receive $7,500 in grants.

There are currently four programs that students can attend using DREAM ISRAEL grants: Alexander Muss High School in Israel, JNF-USA Roots Israel, URJ Heller High, and Ramah TRY.

JNF-USA Boruchin Center Chairman Mike Lederman said: "JNF-USA's Boruchin Center continues to play a leading role in maintaining and promoting the historic connection between the American and Israeli people. We look forward to broadening and deepening our impact by nurturing lifelong connections to Israel among teens and thereby inspiring our next generation of community leaders and changemakers."

President of the Union for Reform Judaism Rabbi Rick Jacobs said: "The Reform Movement is committed to creating the spark that connects young people to the land and people of Israel. A core part of that connection is impactful and educational long-term teen travel to Israel as well as building ties to Reform Movement institutions within Israel. We are pleased to be one of the launch partners of JNF-USA Boruchin Center's DREAM ISRAEL initiative."

CEO of USCJ and the Rabbinical Assembly Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal said: "All of us in the Conservative Movement are thrilled that more and more of our young people are interested in spending significant time in Israel on our programs. We are grateful to JNF-USA's Boruchin Center for its innovative approach to youth philanthropy."

Director of Israel Immersives URJ/Youth Rabbi Loren Sykes said: "DREAM ISRAEL is going to make a high school semester in Israel a reality for more students than ever before. Participating in longer, more immersive experiences will lead teens to deeper, lifelong connections to Israel and Israelis."

Ramah TRY Jerusalem High School Director and Head of School Jonathan Madoff said: "The generosity of JNF-USA will make it easier for hundreds of teens to spend a high school semester on Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim (TRY), journeying through Jewish history and modern Israel, and making Jerusalem their home."

President of Alexander Muss High School in Israel, Ron Werner said:High School in Israel has been transforming teen lives with our immersive educational experience for nearly 50 years. Our programs teach Jewish history as a tool to inculcate Zionistic and Jewish values while setting students up for further academic success. We are so excited about the creation of DREAM ISRAEL and believe it will reenergize long-term teen travel."

DREAM ISRAEL Manager Josh Samet said: "Now more than ever, it is crucial that Jewish students feel an attachment to their ancestral homeland. With this initiative, future leaders will feel a strong connection to Israel that will last a lifetime."

For more information, go to jnf.org/dreamisrael or contact Josh Samet at [emailprotected].

Media Contact: Stefan Oberman, JNF-USA Director of CommunicationsE:[emailprotected] P: 212.879.9305 x222

SOURCE Jewish National Fund-USA

https://www.jnf.org

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Posted By admin on March 10, 2021

SportsPulse: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the media on the eve of the All-Star Game and explained that economic interests were a factor when deciding whether or not to press forward. USA TODAY

When it comes to the all-too-familiar genre of ethnic slur apologies, "I didn't know what the word meant atthe time" is certainly a new one.

Of course, that was the excusethe Miami Heat's Meyers Leonard used Tuesday in his "apology" for loudly using an anti-Semitic slur during a Twitch stream on Monday.

Leonard, now suspended indefinitely by the team, may not have explicitly known the detailed history of the word (heck, most Jews probably don't), but hedefinitelyknew what it meant.

Watching video of the incident, what's most striking is Leonard seeming to pause beforehand to come up with something derogatory to say. It didn't take him long to choose that particular slur, adeep cut andnot something that you hear regularly (or ever)in the 21st century.

And that's what makes Leonard's apology all the more insincere and cowardly.

You used the word, now own it. Why was it in your vocabulary to begin with?If you didn't know what it meant, why say it?

Leonard had the opportunity to be honest, admit he knows its meaning,show remorse for using the word andstart moving in the right direction.Instead, he took a regrettableway out.

Leonard during a game in December 2020.(Photo: Jasen Vinlove, USA TODAY Sports)

Sure, Leonard checked some of the other bingo boxes in his apology ("committed to properly seeking out people who can help educate me about this type of hate and how we can fight it") and will probably partake in some goodwill sessions with Jewish leaders in the near future.

That's a good start in theory, but the risk is that the "people who can help educate me" aren't exactly representative of the majority of American Jews. This became apparent last summer when Ice Cube, in the wake of his own anti-Semitic tweets, befriended Mort Klein, the controversial president of the Zionist Organization of America known for spreading Islamophobia and callingBlack Lives Mattera "Soros-funded racist extremist Israelophobic hate group."

If Leonardtruly wants to be better, he needs to take it upon himselfandseek out a variety of voices in order to learn about the American Jewish experience.In a 2013 study, 62% of American Jews said being Jewishis more about culture and ancestry than religion.

There's no shortage of Jews in sports to speak onit.NFL wide receiver Julian Edelman offered some help. Have a private conversation with NBA commissioner Adam Silver. WNBA star Sue Bird is one of the country'sleading voices for change and inclusion.

Surely whoever starts pointing Leonard in the right direction has good intentions, but it's crucial that he find avenues on his own. Otherwise, he'll never learn.

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Opinion: Meyers Leonard knew what the word meant and he'd be better off admitting that - USA TODAY

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Posted By admin on March 10, 2021

The Religious Zionist Party never had any negative sentiments toward LGBTQ+ people, Orit Struck, No. 5 on the partys list, told the Knesset Channel on Tuesday.

Concerning private people, who you call LGBTQ+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] people, I never, ever had any negative sentiments toward private people for whom this is their situation, she said. Theyre not to blame for their situation. There is absolutely no reason to reject them, to kick them, to hurt them or to discriminate against them or anything like this. For sure, for sure this is not our way; it never was our way.

Her party was obviously against the flood of demands for legitimation and the pride parades, Struck said, but that had no bearing on how they relate to individuals.

We relate to the individual as an individual, she said. We love every Jew, every person as they are. Therefore, I dont see anything outrageous here... We talk a lot about this subject.

In the interview, the Knesset Channel cited statements made by Michal Waldiger, No. 2 on the Religious Zionist list, to Makor Rishon in February, in which she said: Sometimes there is a conflict between liberal values and the Torah, but the Torah determines. There is a Creator who sees the whole picture, and if there is a Torah that does not allow certain things, then I am small and have to find a way.

At the personal level, I have quite a few friends with children who are religious and LGBTQ+, Waldiger told Makor Rishon. At the state level what the public space will look like it is more difficult. It is a difficult struggle that needs to be thought about.

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Waldiger also expressed support for women who decide to join the IDF.

In another Knesset Channel interview on Tuesday, Public Security Minister Amir Ohana (Likud), who is gay, was asked if he would object to the Likud Party sitting with the Religious Zionist Party in a coalition even if the Noam Party is including in the Religious Zionist Partys list.

There was no way for anyone in any bloc to form a coalition without at least one party that opposes LGBT rights, Ohana said, adding that even the left-wing Meretz Party was willing to sit with haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties if necessary.

Noam was established by hard-line members of the religious-Zionist community, including close associates of Rabbi Zvi Yisrael Tau, dean of Yeshivat Har Hamor.

The party has expressed strong anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Reform movement positions, referring to them and other issues as not normal.

In 2019, before the second round of Knesset elections, the party set up booths around the country manned by activists handing out pamphlets and explaining Noams plan to make Israel a normal nation with anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Reform movement slogans.

Natan Rothstein contributed to this report.

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